The invention relates to a traffic beacon, which can be used as a guiding device, especially for street traffic, with a top member which is provided with warning or informative signs and which flips over when a vehicle drives over it. The traffic beacon can be used to separate traffic lanes and also for areas serving stationary traffic, such as parking lots.
A traffic beacon of the aforementioned type is known, for example, from the PCT application WO 96/26321. The top member is connected with a foot plate or with a continuous guiding beam and has a nominal bending site in its lower part. This nominal bending site consists of a soft, elastic material. Its function is to enable the traffic beacon to be driven over and, after that, to resume an upright position automatically. Since the top member offers a certain resistance when bent, particularly when the collision angle is unfavorable, the traffic beacon, in the most unfavorable case when only a single traffic beacon is set up, can be flung away in the event of a collision. This is, of course, not desirable.
At short-term construction sites, guiding cones in the form of pointed hats are generally set up. These guiding cones have the disadvantage that they are flung away or jammed under a vehicle in the event of a collision or that they are flung into the windshield of a vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Accordingly, control over the vehicle is no longer assured. Furthermore, the driver, who follows, does not realize that previously there was a guiding cone at this place. Moreover, due to the rounding, the thin sheet surface is not visible as readily as it would be in the case of a flat surface.